Victoria
Moore, The Guardian:
"I would definitely open on curry night if
I had some in
the fridge"

Wine for Spice®
was created in 2003 to
specify and commission
quality wines to complement Indian as well as other spicy food such as Szechwan Chinese, Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai and Mexican
food.

Former investment banker, Warren Edwardes, developed his
taste for wine as a city dealer and as a corporate treasurer and has often been
part of winning teams in wine tasting competitions.

What was missing, according to Edwardes,
winner of the Pol Roger Cup 2004, was a good
selection of wines specifically
created, and not just marketed, to be drunk with curries and spicy food
- a range of refreshing "wines for world cuisine".

Many of the wines that are sold as "curry
wines" seemed to Edwardes as without any real character to them and merely
bland and inoffensive "wine lake" surplus produce. Edwardes
says "other than good quality, cool and refreshingly sparkling be it beer, water or wine, are
my requirements of a drink to go with a curry or spicy food."
Hence his
creation of Wine for Spice®
and he specified and commissioned the first for Wine for
Spice™ - all quality semi-sparkling wines with the refreshing qualities of a cold
beer and without tannin or oak:

Edwardes has rapidly been recognised as the
world's leading authority on matching wines with spicy food and is a consultant
to wine regions and producers around the world.

Chicken Tikka Masala is the UK's
national dish. And Queen Victoria was a great fan of Indian Curry. Sadly for
Queen Victoria, Wine for Spice's
were unavailable in her time.

Vindaloo, seemingly a British dish, was interestingly invented
by Portuguese sailors who marinated their meat in wine barrels and added Indian
spices, chillies newly brought over from South America, and Garlic. Vinho D'Alho
- a garlicky wine marinade sauce. Warren's
maternal ancestors, the Braganzas of Mapuça, Goa, were known for their wine
cellar. Also in Goa a semi sparkling fermented apple beverage, somewhat similar
to a medium strength cider, is a common accompaniment to dishes such as Sorpatel.

Wine for Spice® Limited is a founder member and
organiser of The Association of Small Direct Wine-Merchants (ASDW) which was
formed, as the name implies, by a group of British independent small wine
merchants directly selling to the general public via mail order and the
internet.